Walk past the Genoa Town Hall this week and you will find the floor torn up where the bar and bathrooms used to be. Demolition wrapped last week, and Summit Plumbing moves in Tuesday and Wednesday to run new lines, which means another stretch with the water shut off before the last of it gets buttoned up. The 140-year-old building the Raycrafts put up as a dance hall in 1886, the same one the town bought from Annie Raycraft in 1941, is mid-repair on a Nevada State Historic Preservation Grant that covers new plumbing and flooring in exactly those two rooms.
Candy Dance is nineteen days away.
That's not a coincidence anyone in town seems worried about, and understanding why tells you more about how Genoa actually runs than any festival recap could.
The Job That Just Emptied Out
The same week the floor came up, the Genoa Town Board approved a search for a new full-time town manager. Former manager Jody Brunz, who earned $88,242 a year plus roughly $31,000 in benefits, is out. Board Chairman Gordon Pasley is now working with Douglas County's HR office to refine the job posting, which is expected to go live in mid-September with possible interviews in November. In the meantime, the town shifted an office specialist position to part-time maintenance work and handed day-to-day operations to Parks Superintendent Ryan Stanton, who will run things through the end of the month, Candy Dance included. After that, the Town of Minden's own manager is stepping in to cover Genoa through October.
For a town this size, "town manager" is not a symbolic title. It is the person who signs off on the staff report that says the water's getting shut off for plumbing work, who handles the grant paperwork, who keeps the lights on in the building that houses the town's biggest fundraiser. Right now that job is being split between a parks superintendent and a neighboring town's manager, for a stretch that includes the one weekend Genoa cannot afford to get wrong.
The Candy Goes In Before the Floor Comes Back
Here's the detail that makes the timing sharper than it first looks. Genoa's Candy Dance volunteers start making the town's signature divinity, peanut brittle, English toffee, almond bark and chocolate clusters roughly two months before the festival, and all of it gets stored and sold out of the Town Hall itself during the two-day event. With the Faire three weeks out, this year's batch has already been in production for weeks, in the same building where crews just tore up the bar and bathroom floor.
The grant that's paying for the repair also flagged something else worth knowing if you've ever wondered why Genoa cares so much about a fundraiser that started over streetlights. The Town Hall has no wall insulation, and its gas and electric bill runs upward of $1,700 a month in winter as a result. A century after the original Candy Dance paid for the town's first streetlights and then kept paying the electric bill that followed, the same building is still fighting the same kind of utility cost, just with a bigger number attached.
What One Week Explains About the Whole Year
It's easy to assume a town called "Genoa" with a 2026 population estimate of about 1,298 has the staffing of a small city. It doesn't, because that 1,298 figure describes the census-designated place, a broader statistical boundary that stretches well past what residents mean when they say "the town." The actual governed town, the one with a Town Board and the vacant manager position, comprises just 153 platted lots. That's the tax base and volunteer pool responsible for running a building, a park, a cemetery lot used for festival parking, and an event that by the town's own account provides a substantial portion of its annual operating budget.
Put those two numbers next to each other and the current staffing gap stops looking like an odd coincidence and starts looking like the normal condition of a very small government running a very large annual event. Genoa doesn't have slack in the system for a vacancy to hide in. It borrows a manager from Minden, hands the interim job to whoever's already on staff, and keeps the Candy Store schedule exactly the same.
The Volunteer Calendar Didn't Wait for Any of This
None of the disruption at Town Hall slowed down the rest of Genoa's fall calendar. The sixth annual Genoa Customs & Classics car show ran September 5 at Mormon Station State Historic Park, the same grounds that will host most of Candy Dance's 400-plus vendors in three weeks. And the town is in the closing weeks of a new addition to its calendar: the Genoa Country Marketplace, a Sunday farmers market organized by Sierra Chef running May 17 through September 20 at Genoa Town Park, nine to one, selling produce, baked goods and handmade crafts.
That closing market date lands the Sunday before Candy Dance itself, which means the town gets one more low-key gathering at the park before the streets close for the big one. Small towns depend on this kind of layering, where a volunteer-run car show and a volunteer-run farmers market keep foot traffic moving through a season that also happens to include a leadership gap and a construction project. Nobody paused the calendar to wait for the town manager search to resolve.
If You're Coming Anyway
The 2026 Candy Dance runs Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, marking the 52nd year the Arts & Crafts Faire has been part of the event since it was added in 1974. The Faire itself is free and runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, with streets in and out of town closed to regular traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. both days.
A few things worth knowing before you go:
- Public parking runs about $10 at three lots. The Genoa Lane lot is the largest and best reached from the south off US-395. The Foothill Road lot serves traffic coming from Minden and Gardnerville. The Genoa Cemetery lot on Jacks Valley Road is the smallest and typically fills by 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
- Free shuttles run between the lots and downtown throughout the day. Cash is the safer bet at candy and food booths since ATMs in town can run dry during peak hours.
- Saturday night's Dinner & Dance, a direct continuation of the original 1919 fundraiser, requires an advance ticket. Last year's tickets ran $65 plus a processing fee and sold out ahead of the event. This year's tickets went on sale in July, so anyone still hoping to get in should check availability soon rather than assume seats are open.
Between now and the Faire, Genoa's small dining scene keeps its usual rhythm regardless of what's happening at Town Hall. Genoa Bar and Saloon, established in 1853 and generally recognized as Nevada's oldest bar, still opens at 10 a.m. most days. The Pink House, standing on Main Street since 1855, still runs its wood-fired menu and premium bar. Daniel's, tucked just behind the Town Hall itself, keeps its French-leaning menu going even with construction next door. Flutter & Buzz Cafe, open since 2022, is still the morning stop for espresso and acai bowls on Main. And out at David Walley's Hot Springs Resort, the 1862 Restaurant & Saloon and its mineral pools give visitors a reason to stay past dinner.
The floor at Town Hall will likely be finished well before the first vendor sets up. The town manager search will still be running. Neither of those facts will show up on a festival poster, but they're the reason Candy Dance keeps happening at all: a volunteer machine built in 1919 to pay an electric bill is still the thing holding a town of 153 lots together, staffing gap or not.
If Genoa's mix of civic grit and small-town continuity is part of what draws you to Carson Valley, The Givens Group can walk you through what living here actually looks like, month to month, before you ever look at a listing. Find Your Dream Home.
